1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a broadband wireless communication system, and in particular, to an apparatus and a method for communicating using a multi-Frequency Allocation (FA) access scheme in a broadband wireless communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A great number of wireless communication techniques has been suggested for a high-speed mobile communication. Among them, an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) scheme is considered as the most dominant next-generation wireless communication technique. It is anticipated that the OFDM will be applied to most of the wireless communication techniques in 2010. A Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 802.16 called the 3.5th-Generation technology also adopts OFDM as the standard specification.
Meanwhile, wireless communication systems have advanced to serve high-speed data or address various issues in the implementation. In the process of the development, various systems can coexist in the same region according to their compatibility with the existing systems. For example, a new advanced system can be installed in the region of an IEEE 802.16e system. In this case, the new system should be able to support the service to both of the existing terminal and the new terminal.
Through a single Frequency Allocation (FA), the current OFDM broadband wireless communication system supports only a terminal which uses a single bandwidth. Hence, to support a new terminal to be developed to use a wider bandwidth, the FA of the system needs to be changed to a new FA of the corresponding bandwidth. However, the system of the changed FA cannot serve the terminal, which uses the existing narrow bandwidth. In other words, when the FA of the system is changed, it is necessary to change the existing terminals at the same time. In this respect, in the development of the broadband wireless communication system, a method for supporting both the existing terminal using the narrow bandwidth and the new terminal using the wide bandwidth is needed.